


Red Hands

by pensandbirds



Series: Perfect Normal, Thank You [1]
Category: Black Widow (MCU), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: including spending some time on Clint's farm, the job never really leaves, what the Avengers do on their off days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:17:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7100944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensandbirds/pseuds/pensandbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between saving the world, the Avengers have perfectly normal lives. Though when you're a member of a group trying to save the world from human and superhuman threats, "normal" might have a slightly different definition. A series of vignettes exploring how various Avengers spend their off time - and how the job never really leaves you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Hands

Natasha Romanoff loved fall flavored drinks.  
She would never in a million years admit it, not willingly. She would give up Avengers secrets, Red Room secrets even, before she gave up that. But she couldn't deny her disappointment when a mission took her out of range of a Starbucks during pumpkin spice season.  
Natasha really just loved fall in general: the brightly colored leaves, sweaters, scarves. She loved the idea of it being cozy without reminding her of harsh Moscow winters.  
Out on Clint's farm, the leaves turned the color of her hair, and the kids noticed. They danced around her, crowning Auntie Nat with leaves of red and gold and orange, floating into piles around them. She helped them build piles of leaves, and laughed as they raced into them, tackling her so she fell backwards into a pile, Cooper and Lila pouncing on her and Nathaniel toddling behind, more often than not tripping over his own feet and falling down with a little shrieking laugh.  
She had to be careful to not react to their play, to not take children tackling her as a threat. She had to willfully keep herself still as they bounced on and around her. Two red leaves sat on Natasha’s hands, reminding her of other red that had been there, seemingly never to come off.  
She brought it up to Clint one day. "Do you ever...are you ever afraid of...work getting involved? In your life?"  
He stopped from where he was nailing a fence slat back into place and looked at her. "You mean my training coming out on accident at home?"  
Sighing in relief, Natasha nodded. Clint always knew her better than anyone else.  
Clint sat back on his heels, twirling a nail between his fingers. His constant motion, especially in such a flashy performance way, didn’t even bother Natasha anymore. When they first met, the constant motion grated on her, drew her eyes and made a muscle in her jaw twitch. Now, it still drew her eyes, but her jaw stretched into a smile. The motion meant Clint was relaxed, thinking, focusing.  
“I used to,” Clint said. “Before Cooper was born, the job was my life and Laura was more of a distraction from that life. And trust me, she was not happy about that.” One side of his mouth twitched up as he glanced down, remembering. “But when we started having kids…well, I knew things had to change. I started separating more. You have to compartmentalize. It’s like a switch in your head.”  
Natasha sat up, spine stiffening.  
“Bad choice of words,” Clint said. “It’s not like brainwashing. It’s more of like…I don’t know how to describe it. It’s moving from one thing to another. It’s seeing them with different eyes than I use on the job. It’s a different kind of life.” He stopped flipping the nail. “You never really get over it; that’s the point, training is automatic, it’s always there. But you learn to relax a little. You start learning different training. Like how to smile eating kid experiment food. Or what kind of screaming is good screaming and what’s not.” He hefted the hammer again, and smiled at Nat. “Gotta get into the new program, Romanoff. Welcome to basic training.”

A different kind of training. She’d done it before; she could do it again, easily.  
Over the rest of her stay on the farm, she started paying attention. To the way Laura handled the sound of running feet and arguing voices. How Clint managed kids jumping out from behind the couch. She noticed the slight tension in his shoulders when Lila shouted “Boo!”, but she also saw how quickly that tension left.  
So Natasha started practicing. It didn’t go well; she couldn’t stop her breath from catching, her muscles tensing, her mind looking for escape routes and fighting plans anytime one of the kids popped out from around a corner. She barely caught herself one morning when little Lila woke her up by jumping on her bed. Natasha nearly pinned the little girl to the floor, her body reacting before her mind could process.  
By her last day on the Barton farm, she had given herself up as a failure. She wouldn’t be able to switch the way Clint could. The red on her hands, the red that shaped her, was not coming off.

“Auntie Nat!” Cooper called, a large poster in his hands that hit the cabinets as he skated across the wood floor of the kitchen to where Natasha was making a pumpkin latte. Her lattes were not the same as Starbucks, but it would do for now.  
“Hey, buddy, what’s happening?” she asked, setting her mug on the table, already tensing for a fight, scanning for a threat unconsciously.  
“Can I practice my poster on you?” His green eyes looked up at her, sharp and admiring.  
Oh. That was excitement in his voice, anticipation, not panic.  
“Sure,” she said, helping him wrangle the poster. Written in careful child’s handwriting was “My Family”; below were shaky lines connecting proudly colored stick figures. The ink hadn’t quite dried; a streak of red smudged off the smooth poster and onto Natasha’s hands.  
Cooper sat Nat down and pointed to the poster, to the smallest drawing at the bottom with an air of satisfaction and command. "This is my baby brother, Nathaniel Pietro," he explained. "He's named after an uncle I didn't meet 'cause he died far away and my Auntie Nat. She's our favorite. Her hair is red like fall leaves and she is really strong, and when she smiles it's like all the stars when daddy takes us out camping in the woods. And besides Daddy and Mommy, Aunt Nat is my safest person."  
He continued rattling on, describing his family, but all Natasha heard were his last words, echoing in her mind. When the little boy was done, Natasha pulled him into a hug, praising the presentation. For once, she was not worried about work bleeding through. She squeezed as tightly as she could to transfer love into this warm little life, and she didn't think about the red on her hands.


End file.
